From http://www.itbusinessedge.com/cm/community/features/interviews/blog/for-the-desktop-think-centralization-not-virtualization/?cs=49813 news

Arthur Cole spoke with Barry Phillips, CMO,Wanova.

 

Is it possible that we have been approaching desktop virtualization all wrong? Many organizations have implemented VDI as a means to reduce infrastructure and improve manageability. However, Barry Phillips, chief marketing officer at Wanova, says virtualization should be seen as one benefit of an overall centralization effort, not the other way around. By focusing on layered, single-image management, enterprises stand to gain a wide range of benefits on the PC, plus streamline server, storage and networking infrastructure across the board.

 

Cole: It seems Wanova has been de-emphasizing the notion of desktop virtualization in favor of desktop centralization. How should enterprises distinguish between the two?
Phillips: The key value of desktop virtualization boils down to a single concept that provides numerous PC manageability benefits. That concept is centralization. When you centralize PC images, one of the greatest benefits is enabling IT to manage one copy of Windows and other corporate applications for everyone in that organization. This results in a dramatic reduction in desktop total cost of ownership (TCO), the main value proposition of desktop virtualization.
While single-image management of Windows and applications makes PCs easier to manage, centralized images and layering of those images provide a game-changing increase in IT simplicity and efficiency by aggregating many separate siloed desktop functions into one streamlined offering. Collapsing separate teams, tools and processes for patch and image management, desktop backup and recovery, Windows migration, PC repair, PC refresh, software and hardware inventory reporting, and more into one offering becomes simple when PC images are centralized and managed via layering. This would quickly light up the eyes of any CIO when they are trying to find the budget and people to staff a new strategic IT project.
In my opinion, desktop virtualization is a subset of centralization — a use case for when there is a hypervisor in the data center or on the client. This logic would then suggest that VDI is a subset of desktop virtualization, as it is specific to a hypervisor in the data center.

 

Cole: So in the Mirage platform, how is desktop centralization enabled in a way that standard virtualization is not?
Phillips: Wanova has a 16,000-seat Windows 7 migration customer that understood the residual benefits associated with Mirage centralizing PC images as part of the migration project, including replacing their image management vendor, providing backup and restore of the entire PC — including personal applications, drivers, files, profiles, bookmarks, etc. — zero-touch PC repair without troubleshooting, PC refresh, user self-service recovery of deleted files, etc.
Notice I did not mention anything about hypervisors, virtualization or virtual machines. These are all the benefits typically promoted by desktop virtualization, but in fact these benefits are from centralization, not virtualization. This customer and the other Windows 7 migration prospects we have of this size never would have considered us for migration had we positioned this as desktop virtualization.

 

Cole: Centralization often implies greater reliance and networking resources to maintain working data environments. Is there a danger that over-centralization of desktop images may push some infrastructure over the cliff?
Phillips: Actually it is the opposite. The scenario you describe is what happens when you have centralized images that are accessed via VDI. Since the images run in the data center with VDI, you have a huge reliance on networking because wide-area connections, spotty network performance or no connectivity can keep a user from his or her main productivity tools — their desktop, applications and files. Since these images run on many servers and need expensive storage, initial and ongoing data center infrastructure costs are prohibitive. However, when you centralize images in the data center with layered, single-image management and enable those images to run locally on an endpoint, the reliance on the network goes away — just like any regular PC today.
I was in the air a total of 51 hours during a business trip in December and was productive the entire time, despite no Wi-Fi in any of the planes, because my image ran locally on my PC. Since images take advantage of the local compute power of the endpoint, the data center infrastructure is significantly less than when you centralize and use VDI — a 50-to-1 difference in number of servers, for example. Storage, bandwidth, server racks and networking gear all have similar reductions.
All that said, it is my opinion that all images will eventually be centralized and managed via layered, single-image management. The opportunity for lower TCO and long-term efficiency by aggregating these desktop functions into one streamlined offering cannot be ignored. Some users will access those centralized images via a thin client over a high-speed connection (VDI) and some users will run those images on their intelligent endpoint.
You can argue the percentages of each one of those and of course I have my opinion. Regardless of what percentage you come up with, I hope you agree that centralization will change the landscape of desktop management as we know it today.